Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic

“Do not eat garlic or onions; for their smell will reveal that you are a peasant.” – Don Quixote

When I was talking about my 2nd list with people, I’d throw out a couple sample items.  Often, I’d offer Chicken With 40 Cloves of Garlic as a sample.  I got a lot of horrified looks.  And a lot of “Wait…40?  40?”.

Yes, we’re using 40 cloves of garlic, kids.  And yes, you will still be able to kiss that certain someone.  Well, unless that certain someone is Edward Cullen (keep dreamin’ sister) Then you might have problems.

Annnnnyway, let’s get started.  I used a couple recipes for this project.  One from The Joy of Cooking and the other from my new favorite cookbook, The New Best Recipe Cookbook from Cook’s Illustrated. And finally, I went to the lady herself, with Barefoot in Paris, by Ina Garten.

HItting the books......

First, your pieces of chicken get seasoned liberally with salt and pepper.  Then cook them in batches, a few minutes on each side.  Set them aside and cover with foil…..we’ll get back to this in a bit.

Now, peel your garlic cloves but DO NOT chop them.  This is key.  The smaller you chop your garlic, the stronger the flavor.  So, if we’re using 40 of them, those puppies are going to stay whole:

This is what 40 cloves of garlic looks like.......

Now we cook these whole cloves in a dutch oven in some oil.  WARNING: this part will make your house smell delicious:

Dutch oven with 40 cloves of garlic.

And a little bit later….

Cloves getting nice and brown....

The garlic gets soft and browned and it just smells different. It’s softer and smells roasted and rich.  Mmmmmm.  Now on to the next step…..

Add your liquid to the pot: a mix of dry white wine and cognac.  Add this to the pot with the garlic, your thyme and bay leaves and bring to a boil.

Garlic and wine. Win and Win.

The chicken now gets returned to the pot.  My chicken just barely fit in there, but I moved it around every once in awhile.  30 minutes or so, test with your thermometer to make sure you won’t poison anyone, then pull your chicken out of the pot and set aside.

Now crank the heat back up on your sauce.  Pull out 1/2 a cup of the sauce and mix in some flour to make a slurry:

For real, the technical term is slurry....

Whisk the slurry back in the sauce to thicken it and then pour over your pretty plated chicken:

So as I type this it is 10pm and I haven't eaten dinner and seriously this could not look any better.

And now we’re ready to rock.  Serve this deliciousness over mashed potatoes (because why wouldn’t you) and with slices of crusty bread (because the more carbs the better).

So how was the chicken?  Pretty good.  Juicy and roasted, but the real star was the sauce.  And its really weird to write this, but it really didn’t even taste that much like garlic.  This was a totally new kind of garlic.

The Garlic is served!

UNFORESEEN BONUS: Garlic. Is. Amazing.  Cooking garlic this way makes it so incredibly soft you can smear it on bread with a knife.  For real.  Do it.

So try Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic if for no other reason than it will be  a totally different garlic experience for you.  And you can make out with your vampire boyfriend afterward.

xoxo Flyover Foodie

p.s. As usual, thank you for being patient with my intermittent blogging.  Work is a liiiitttlle rough right now.  You guys are the best.